Slaying your giants can help you enjoy life more. Who are these “giants”? Past hurts can seem like giants stomping around in your mind and preventing you from having joy.
Past hurts are the biggest obstacles to being free to have joy. The juvenile court believed in using a form of treatment described in the book, “Reality Therapy” by William Glasser. Glasser said that no matter how you feel, act the way you want to feel and the feelings will follow. I discovered that this method works with the behavior, but does not deal with the hurts that caused the behavior. It was like taking a child to Disneyland with a broken leg. Without any treatment, the leg caused such tremendous pain and prevented the child from having fun.
Wounds from the past are like cancer in the soul. If a man ignores cancer it will eventually destroy his body. He can pretend he doesn’t have it, but it will grow if he does not get it treated. If he faces it, gets professional help, and gets it removed, he has the opportunity to live a healthy, free life. The treatment for cancer is painful, but the alternative is death. It can be emotionally painful to remember past hurts, but the alternative is emotional devastation and living a lie.
God is the healer of past hurts. As far as the east is from the west, He promises to remove our sins from us. And as far as the east is from the west, He will heal you of the sins others have done against you. Jesus hung on a bloody cross. He was mocked, beaten, and nailed to a cross. He is the King of love, yet He was treated as a criminal. As he hung on that cross He said, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”
His mercy, love, and forgiveness are in you when you ask Him to come into your heart. His Holy Spirit is the same Spirit that was in David when he slew the giant, Goliath. David focused on the power of God within him. He told the giant, “You come to me with sword and spears. I come to you in the name of the Lord God Almighty.”
For years Abraham Lincoln was told he was a good-for-nothing lazy nobody. As a boy, Lincoln spent much of his time spitting logs and making fences for his father, but he liked to read books and practiced being an orator. So every time he took a break from his work, he would read or practice speaking. He learned not to listen to every negative voice that came to attack him, and eventually became the greatest President this country has ever known.
My own childhood was filled with abuse. My mother called me names long before I had any understanding of what their meaning was. She was angry and cruel. My parents left me at a hospital and I went into a foster home. When the foster mother wanted to adopt me, my father and grandmother refused to agree. So I went into a home with a mother who had no bonding or love for me. I was bullied throughout my grade school years. But as a child of God, I have learned that no matter how difficult the situation is, no matter how big and powerful the giants, and no matter how cruel others are, God still works all things for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
Had I not lived through the abuses of my childhood, I would never have understood, cared, and loved the children in the juvenile court system as I did. Had I not been emotionally abused as a young woman, I would never have understood the women at the battered women’s shelter. God doesn’t waste a sorrow. He uses all things for good. Had Jesus not gone to the cross, there would have been no sacrifice for our sins and there would have been no resurrection.
There may be weeping for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
Today’s Challenge:
Can you think of a sorrow you have experienced that has given you abilities, talents, and purpose that you would not have had without the experience?
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Not a member of the Joy in Troubled Times Challenge yet?
Join today it’s free! I look forward to seeing you on the other side. Here’s why I decided to do this challenge. Since joy is a choice, and a choice we make every single day, I want to challenge you to make it a habit. Over the coming days, I want to inspire and encourage you to make a choice each morning to be more joyful.
It takes time and daily conscious decisions to change habits and how we approach life. That’s where the challenge comes into play. The idea is that you have a daily reminder here on the blog and via email each day to help you remember to make that choice. Of course, there will also be plenty of helpful content on the topic of joy in the form of a new daily blog post. At the end of the challenge, I hope you have formed new habits, new ways of thinking, and new ways to look at each situation as it arises. With a little shift in thinking and perception, you can have a more joyful, more fulfilling life. I hope this challenge will help you get there.